Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #199. Andrea Di Stefano’s Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Director: Andrea Di Stefano
Writer: Andrea Di Stefano
Producer: Dimitri Rassam
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Hutcherson, Carlos Bardem, Brady Corbet, Ana Girardot, Claudia Traisac

Now working with the shortened, not to be confused with the Joe Berlinger series title, actor-turned-first time helmer Andrea Di Stefano’s Paradise Lost looks like it could side step traditional biopic terrain, skipping tedious fact-based details for a free-spirited template. We’re thinking that the film’s colorful backdrop, and acting clout presence from the highly selective Del Toro and a Brady Corbet (featured several times on our Top 200 list) could be parlayed into a unique look into what on paper comes across as the fear of god (aka Pablo Escobar) being drilled into the not so impressionable youth with a visual summary of the kinds of treasures the Escobar estate were afforded with their export business.

Gist: Young surfer Nick (Josh Hutcherson) thinks all his dreams have come true when he goes to visit his brother in Columbia. Against an idyllic backdrop of blue lagoons and white beaches he falls madly in love with a beautiful Colombian girl called Maria. It all seems perfect until he meets her uncle, one Pablo Escobar.

Release Date: No mention for either the Sundance and/or Berlin Film Festival means this might receive a world preem at Locarno or Venice.

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